{"id":197234,"date":"2025-11-24T07:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T07:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197234\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T07:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T07:24:10","slug":"the-wretched-business-of-smart-casual-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197234\/","title":{"rendered":"The wretched business of smart casual \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lord Nicholas Stern and Lord Adair Turner are two of the world\u2019s most serious thinkers on climate change policy.<\/p>\n

But when the two British peers bumped into each other at the UN<\/a> Cop30<\/a> climate conference in the tropical Brazilian city of Bel\u00e9m the other day, they had another matter to discuss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you wearing that jacket?\u201d demanded a shirt-sleeved Turner as a besuited Stern made his way into the muggy confines of the UK delegation pavilion, where the pair were speaking at back-to-back events. <\/p>\n

It was a reasonable question. <\/p>\n

Temperatures in parts of the unevenly air-conditioned venue had by this stage soared to such heights that the UN had told Brazil\u2019s organisers action was \u201curgently required to safeguard the wellbeing of delegates\u201d. <\/p>\n

A carbon markets meeting was disrupted when a sweaty delegate trying to leave his plastic chair discovered the backs of his thighs had been welded in place with what one journalist present described as \u201cthe force of a thousand post-beach car seats\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a noisy lurch to wrench himself free, the delegate\u2019s paperwork went flying, while others who tried to leave their sticky seats made such a racket the chair called for future sessions to include seat covers. <\/p>\n

To an extent, this was part of the plan. Brazil<\/a>\u2019s President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a> insisted a conference on the edge of the Amazon rainforest would show the world what life was like on a warming planet.<\/p>\n

In keeping with this theme, Lula\u2019s government issued official advice that formal business attire was not needed and \u201cto ensure everyone\u2019s comfort, the recommended dress code for the COP30 is smart casual\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

Andr\u00e9 Corr\u00eaa do Lago, the polished Brazilian diplomat presiding over the Cop talks, and Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union\u2019s Dutch climate commissioner, both interpreted smart casual to mean you could leave not just one but two top shirt buttons undone. This seemed eminently sensible to me, but left others visibly dismayed<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Alas, this proved less than helpful. Stern was one of multiple attendees who turned up in a suit, in his case an M&S<\/a> navy linen number, at an event to discuss his new climate book, The Growth Story of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

He agreed the forbidding heat made the case for this wardrobe choice thin, but as he told me later, when it comes to smart casual, \u201cI never know what it means\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was news to me. I knew that for women, the idea of smart casual, or the equally confusing business casual, is ill-defined to the point of uselessness. <\/p>\n

But I had always assumed it helped men, since it at least suggested there was no need for a tie, an item Lula cheerfully dispensed with as the Cop got under way.<\/p>\n

It turned out ties were the least of the problems for men in Bel\u00e9m, where the 30C-plus temperatures posed a number of sartorial perils, starting with shirt buttons.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Corr\u00eaa do Lago, the polished Brazilian diplomat presiding over the Cop talks, and Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union\u2019s Dutch climate commissioner, both interpreted smart casual to mean you could leave not just one but two top shirt buttons undone. This seemed eminently sensible to me, but left others visibly dismayed. \u201cI mean, you can see actual chest hair,\u201d one male participant said.<\/p>\n

I suppose reactions like this explain the vexing matter of the jacket, an item Turner deems an illogical \u201ctotem pole of respectability\u201d, even in cooler climes.<\/p>\n

Men set off to meetings in a jacket that makes them too hot, he told me, so they take it off and carry it until they can put it on the back of a chair, where they leave it until it\u2019s time to leave. \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personally, I have always envied the way a man can use a jacket like a mobile handbag, stuffing its pockets with his wallet, phone and keys. In places like Bel\u00e9m though, the jacket made zero sense.<\/p>\n

Still, things have been worse at these conferences. Although the general state of Cop attire tends to veer more towards the casual than the smart, there are limits. <\/p>\n

Some years ago, at a Cop in Poland, an adviser to developing country delegates lashed out at negotiators from Australia, then led by prime minister Tony Abbott, a critic of robust climate action.<\/p>\n

The adviser said Australians were not just being unnecessarily obstructive in the talks, they were also giggling, insensitive, and \u201cwearing T-shirts\u201d. They may have been ahead of their time. <\/p>\n

In sweltering Bel\u00e9m this week, a T-shirt was the height of common dress sense. Cool, light and notably, capable of covering the most unruly type of chest hair. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lord Nicholas Stern and Lord Adair Turner are two of the world\u2019s most serious thinkers on climate change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[377,9,10,47570,13,14,6,11,12,33405,15,16,57166,5,7,8,2863,80,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-197234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-brazil","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-cop30","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-marks-spencer-ms","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-nations-un","tag-work","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115603483059272439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}